From & To Sathish #6 - Page 27

Why is the song called 'Bohemian Rhapsody'?

Why does it last exactly 5 minutes and 55 seconds?

What is this song really about?

Why did the Queen movie premiere on October 31?

The movie premiered on October 31 because the single was first heard on October 31, 1975. It's titled that way because a 'Rhapsody' is a free-form musical piece composed of different parts and themes that seem unrelated to each other.

The word 'rhapsody' comes from Greek and means 'assembled parts of a song.'

The word 'bohemian' refers to a region in the Czech Republic called Bohemia, where Faust, the protagonist of Goethe's work of the same name, was born. In Goethe's work, Faust was an elderly and intelligent man who knew everything except the mystery of life. Unable to comprehend it, he decides to poison himself.

At that moment, church bells ring, and he goes outside. When he returns to his room, he finds a dog that transforms into a kind of man. It's the devil, Mephistopheles. He promises Faust a full life without misery in exchange for his soul. Faust agrees, rejuvenates, and becomes arrogant. He meets Gretchen and has a child. His wife and child die. Faust travels through time and space and feels powerful. When he becomes old again, he feels miserable once more. Since he didn't break the pact with the devil, angels contend for his soul.

This work is essential to understanding 'Bohemian Rhapsody.'

The song is about Freddie Mercury himself. Being a rhapsody, it has 7 different parts:

1st and 2nd acts - A Capella

3rd act - Ballad

4th act - Guitar solo

5th act - Opera

6th act - Rock

7th act - 'Coda' or final act

The song talks about a poor boy questioning if this life is real or if his distorted imagination is living another reality. He says that even if he stops living, the wind will keep blowing without his existence. So, he makes a deal with the devil and sells his soul.

Upon making this decision, he rushes to tell his mother and says...

"Mama, I just killed a man, put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger, now he's dead. Threw my life away. If I'm not back again this time tomorrow, carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters..."

The man he kills is himself, Freddie Mercury.

If he doesn't fulfill the pact with the devil, he will die immediately.

He says goodbye to his loved ones, and his mother breaks into tears, tears and desperate crying that comes from Brian May's guitar notes. Freddie, terrified, cries out, "Mama, I don't want to die," and the operatic part begins. Freddie finds himself in an astral plane where he sees himself: "I see a little silhouetto of a man"... "Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?"

Scaramouche is an "escaramuza," a skirmish between armies with horseback riders (4 horsemen of the Apocalypse of evil fighting against the forces of good for Freddie's soul), and he continues, saying, "Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening me."

This phrase appears in the Bible, specifically in Job 37 when it says, "the thunder and lightning frighten me: my heart pounds in my chest." Seeing his son so scared by the decision he has made, Freddie's mother begs to save him from the pact with Mephistopheles. "He's just a poor boy..." "Spare him his life from this monstrosity." "Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?" Her pleas are heard, and angels descend to battle the forces of evil. "Bismillah" (an Arabic word meaning "In the name of God") is the first word in the holy book of Muslims, the Quran. So, God Himself appears and shouts, "We will not let you go."

In the face of such a confrontation between good and evil, Freddie fears for his mother's life and says, "Mama mia, mama mia, let me go." They shout again from the sky that they won't abandon him, and Freddie cries, "No, no, no, no, no," and says, "Beelzebub (the Lord of Darkness) has a devil put aside for me." Freddie pays homage here to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach when he sings... "Figaro, Magnifico," referring to Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro," considered the greatest opera of all time, and to Bach's "Magnificat."

The operatic part ends, and the rockier part bursts in. The devil, angry and betrayed by Freddie not keeping the pact, says, "So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye? So you think you can love me and leave me to die?"

It's chilling how the Lord of Evil feels powerless against a human being, against repentance and love.

Having lost the battle, the devil departs, and we reach the final act or 'coda' where Freddie is free, and that feeling comforts him. The gong that closes the song sounds. The gong is an instrument used in China and East Asian cultures to heal people under the influence of evil spirits.

It lasts for 5:55 minutes. Freddie liked astrology, and in numerology, 555 is associated with death, not physical but spiritual, the end of something where angels will safeguard you. 555 is related to God and the divine, an ending that will lead to a new beginning.

And the song plays on Halloween eve for the first time. A holiday called 'Samhain' by the Celts to celebrate the transition and opening to the other world.

The Celts believed that the world of the living and the dead were closely connected, and on the Day of the Dead, both worlds would unite, allowing spirits to cross over.

Nothing in 'Bohemian Rhapsody' is coincidental.

Everything is carefully crafted and has a meaning that goes beyond being just a song.

https://youtu.be/fJ9rUzIMcZQ?si=QJlj1xz7L5Bmj6Ff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZQ7NL-o6E8

The mirror reflects your face but not your thoughts. Yes, there are times when we look at the mirror and ask our reflection questions. The mirror indeed reflects all that is shone upon it and placed in front of it. But, what about that which lurks behind the eyes, in the brain and that we call the mind and our thought place or better, thought palace? For some, it is a palace while for others it is a thought prison.

Unlike the shiny mirror that contents itself with the outside and physical, it is our soul and conscience that truly reflect our inner workings. Good or bad.

The third option that helps in looking at a problem face-to-face is another soul. Preferably one you trust with your life and with your soul. All of us have that luxury. Me too. The coward and selfish pig that I am, I call that soul and happily dump all my pain, and sorrow in their safe hands and instantly feel better.

Sometimes, that is all most of us need. A shoulder to lean on. A person who can listen to you without being judgemental and yes, a person whose arms are always open to hold and comfort you.

I remember those years when a fridge was thought of as a luxury. I remember growing up thinking a TV set was a luxury. Then came my two-wheeler and years later came my first four-wheeler.

But now, I see, sense and understand that they are not the luxuries of this illusory life that is here today, gone tomorrow.

The real luxuries of today are to have loved ones who are both family and friends or better, friends who have become more than family.

The greatest luxury is to have souls around you, surround you and who don't corrupt you and let you be who you were meant to be and encourage you to be that.

https://youtu.be/NeZ4yXyzUG0?si=vIItE_IHpuX7AcKP This video is from two years ago. So relevant now. Sad.

The Art of Perfumes

By Shoba Narayan, Connoor & Co, 29 October 2023

Flowers are the heart of perfumery, and smell is the most ancient of our senses. Watch a newborn lamb sniff its way to its mother and you will understand why we inhale and smell in a way that is primitive…primordial. Smell is our root– a connection to comfort…mother and land.

A smell is different from a scent. The earliest scents were rolled incense which we humans smoked to carry our prayers to God. Scents were our medium of worship and the person who creates them, therefore, is a shaman. He is a medium, a seer.

In India, our ancient rishis, our sages, were called “seers” because they could see entire universes. In Sanskrit, we say that the Vedas are “apauraseya,” or without creator. They were “heard” by the sages who viewed themselves as mediums for messages from the cosmos.

A perfumer is this way. Not only because he draws upon the elements for inspiration but also because at his core, much like all creative people, he is a medium for a message. He is a shaman who combines elements in lovely and surprising ways. He assembles and mixes specific scents into something that is desirable, even magical. And what a wonderful thing that is for those of us who can wear these creations.

What do you look for when you sniff a perfume? Most of us cannot articulate this because scents and fragrances reach into the bone marrow to the place before language began. When I sniff a perfume, I wait for a calling, a longing, a yearning, that I feel in my veins. I wait for the scent to embrace me and hold me in its mystery and magic. I ask whether it is the one that I should receive in my body, mind and soul.

When I sniff this scent, I wonder whether it will become my kavacha, or body armor, fueling my passions and protecting my core. Or whether it will be a sail, taking me with the wind to new places.

So yes, when I smell a scent, I am having a conversation – with the ingredients and with their creator. I want to know if the perfumer “gets” me. I want to know if the perfume that he has created will give me what I want at that moment in time – because after all, each of us is attracted to different fragrance profiles at different stages in our lives. And I want to know if the perfume will speak for me. Because really scents do what words cannot. They articulate messages without saying a word.

Scents are memories, which is why we adore them. They can take you to a citrus tree on a salty beach; to crushed ginger that is poured on the root of a tree, to the vetiver root that protected you as a child from summer’s scorching sun, to musk and mushrooms that soothe your wounds with rubies and enchantment.

Cities are smells, as the late poet Mahmoud Darwish said. Madurai is the smell of petrichor, tuberose and fat jasmine flowers that release their scent to the supple fingers of women at dawn. Mysore is the scent of sandalwood, vetiver and pink roses that wink at you from the market. A perfumer inhales all these smells to create his signature fragrance that is as much an offering as it is a creation.

If there is one siren who stirs the passion of all perfumers, it is, of course, nature, in all her bounty and beauty. There is the beauty of mountain rocks– the malai kal as we call it. There is the strength of cumin and spices that feed and nourish us. There is the smell of wet earth and panting dogs. The smell of your reflection when you are sad. What about tamarind and ginger that come together in Indian kitchens? The night musk that women wear under their ear lobes before they screw on diamond earrings. What about the scent of your mother’s saree that rustles and holds within it, a thousand stories wrought from history and nostalgia? A scent is a map of your past, present and future. It is sensual panting, a painting that captures your silences. It guides you in ways that you cannot know or fathom. A scent therefore is an expanse of your emotions compressed into a bottle.

Scents are a museum of memories. They take you into the spaces that you have lost and found. A sugarcane field, a sprig of davanam tied into a jasmine garland, crushed mint sprinkled on tea, these are all scents that guide you into distant lands that you have purged from your consciousness. Whatever you have lost needs to be remembered, found, worshipped, retained and resolved. This is the power of scent. It makes you whole.

So then the scent laboratory, where one person– the perfumer mixes these ancient strong ingredients into potent reminders of what is possible. These perfumers inhale rain, they hold the moon and the sun within them to restore feelings that have been broken by Mother time. They carry shadows and imagination, both yours and mine. And they mix. They try to make the whole bigger than the potency of the parts. Because mixing is where the magic happens. A rose can hit you with the force of a sledgehammer. But mix it with musk and it becomes a gentle violin. A tuberose has waged wars with primitive weapons, but mix it with citrus and it sings.

Scents take you home.

Shoba Narayan is the author of five books. She has been a journalist and columnist for 30 years, writing about travel, food, wine, culture, crafts and relationships, for national and international publications. She has won a James Beard Award and a Pulitzer Fellowship. She has taught and lectured at universities in India and abroad. She is interested in Indian aesthetics– and has researched its influence on jewellery, music, textiles and scents. She believes perfumes evoke memory and identity. She founded and co-created a website called Project LooM, which documents the weaving traditions of India. She is a birdwatcher, wine-drinker and gadget geek. Her lifelong mission is to get fit without exercising and lose weight without dieting.

Good morning. I wish you a beautiful day. All the best.

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,

Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;

So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,

Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.”

But, just do it.

You can be alone even when in a crowd. You can be alone even when surrounded by family and friends. You can be alone even when in the arms of your lover and are buried deep inside them. You can be lost and lonely even in broad daylight and when stuck in traffic.

But, just do it.

Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not and often we call a man cold when he is only sad.

But, just do it.

“Come! Poor little heart! Be cheery and brave. We'll be a great deal to one another if we are thrown off and left desolate.” Elizabeth Gaskell

But, just do it.

Good morning. I wish you a beautiful day.

Prayer is not a monologue, but dialogue; God's voice is its most essential part. Listening to God's voice is the secret of the assurance that He will listen to mine

A quiet place

“Breathing in, I calm my body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment, I know this is the only moment." Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace

"Is it because of age or the experience that comes with age?" is a question I have asked myself many times over the past few years. I have asked this question again and again in noisy and disturbing situations when I have reached and taken the cloak of silence and let it cover me with its quiet and peace, shutting away the noises from the others around me.

Silence. Yes, silence is such an important ambience, virtue, and need, not just in our own personal and daily lives but also at work.

Being an actor, I realized very early in my career that for an actor, quiet and peace are vital when they find themselves in front of the camera and also when preparing to come before the camera for their scenes.

Sadly, many actors that I work with today fail to see the point I am making and are constantly chittering like rats and chattering like monkeys, right until the director screams "ACTION" or "silence."

This same silence is sadly lacking in temples and other places of worship, and yes, also in theaters. Mobile phones ringing and people answering them at their loudest a while, we curse them.

One of the reasons that I seek the solace of the beach and the sunrise almost every other day is because of the need for silence and also because only in that morning glory of silence am I able to hear my own voice talking with my own version of God's voice.

I know, but more about that talking stuff later.

But a quiet beach, soft sands, and morning sun are not possible all the time and are not in your reach when you want them.

Remember that time when we sat near the window of a train and watched and heard other trains racing towards us, screaming and then rushing past us, and soon faded away? Both sight and sound diminish as the train vanishes out of sight.

Be that. Use that and let useless people and their useless chittering and chattering recede from your sight and hearing. Not only when at work but when in prayer and conversing with God with eyes wide open.

It works. Believe me, it works. Illusion. Delusion.

Maybe. Maybe not, but if it works, then that is good.

Hey, Give it a chance and let it work. For we give life a chance and think of ourselves as immortals, and when we know well, very well that the real immortal called death is around the corner, the corner could be a U-turn or a blind curve, and it has you in its sight.

Yet, we humans persist in the illusion of life, immortality, and eternity.

So, cover yourself and drown yourself in the peace of silence when at work, when in solitude, and also when among friends and family who are acting like foes and fools.

Good morning. I wish you a beautiful day.

Prayer is not a monologue but a dialogue; God's voice is its most essential part. Listening to God's voice is the secret to the assurance that He will listen to mine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLUNNGxgNmU

Was Daniel Craig the best James Bond?

That will be answered sooner than later. In hindsight, everyone bitched, moaned, groaned and tore Daniel apart when his name was announced all those years ago and then Casino Royale happened. There was just no looking back.

Thank you, Daniel Craig. You did well even though some of the films were bad. Stinking bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgNnyMxLjps

I found this video rather funny and ironic in its content and The reason being the video was cliched and general in nature. It does not explain what each and every life goes through. Birth is not the beginning for it is also the end for so many. I mean those that are born dead and those who go through life half-dead.